Naruto 1. Chapter 1:Elation and The Stranger

With the sound of a bell, the trial begins.

Those too weak to stand sit in boxes, nursing old wounds and looking towards the hanging cage with vengeance in their slits of eyes. Those strong enough stand prouder, less bound by the physical, running more on their own spirits and less on their newly rehashed weaknesses.

It is the strong's eyes where pity can still be found, intertwined with necessity and vengeance. Pity for their former savior, pity for the golden months of security and safety, long dead and buried. Now is a new era, and it is not kind to the weak. The strong are the ones who will be the prosecutors for the weak tonight.

It is silent. There are no screams of indignation, no protests.

No admittance of anything here being wrong.

No sympathy for the caged devil, sitting, shackled and filthy, before them.

"The trial of Uzumaki Naruto will now begin."

…..

His breath panting, he ran through the streets, a barely disguised look of feverish madness in his eyes. Pushing passerbys out of the way fiercely, his legs cried out but were denied air. The sun seemed to undulate with his heartbeats, moving up and down in the middle of a glazed, hazy blue sky as he moved forward, ever forward, feet pounding the dirt no longer aware of pain, his eyes dull and dead, too tired to see.

_Let me out._

_Let me out. _

…

Naruto stirred awake, hands clutching the pinkette's glorious hair as she snored softly. As his fingers deftly working out of the tangles, he wondered again how he, Uzumaki Naruto, had managed to led such a charmed life. To call the only woman he'd ever lusted/loved "girlfriend", to be the leader of his village….A man could die happy, he thought to himself.

"Hunnhhhh?" Like clockwork, Sakura woke up as soon as the alarm hit six A.M. and began screaming bloody murder, her green eyes suddenly focusing on the disheveled, bare sunlight world of their bedroom. Smiling sweetly, she turned towards Naruto and said, her voice like thick golden syrup:

"Want some breakfast, sweetheart?"

"Sure, babe." He smiled, hugging her closer to him. "But not for a bit. There's still fun to be had here…." Devilishly, he placed his mouth on her bare neck, moving lower and lower down as he went, hearing her girlish giggles with every bite.

"Oh come on, silly!" She pouted until he reluctantly loosed his grip and de-necked long enough for her to grab the spare clothes she had lying around, and, strapping on a white apron, pristine in the bare threads of daylight that streamed in from the window.

She looked like an angel, dimly light, clothed in white, her smile a simple bucolic rendering from some archaic painting. She was his, and she was perfect.

"I'll clean the room." Sakura looked around with an air of enthusiasm she always found whenever she began tidying up, a sort of elated satisfaction. "Why don't you go get some groceries or something?"

"Of course." He smiled, reaching for his wallet.

…

Strolling down the streets of Konoha, he waved to those he passed with exuberance, letting them know that today had started off well, as was to be expected. They all smiled the same way, each old woman strung with bags of shopping, each child dangling a stuffed animal from the crevices of their arms.

The world seemed lush and green, bright with morning dew, ever his for the taking, reminding him of all he could do. Would do, someday. The feeling of cheeriness spread through him once more, stronger this time, causing him to almost leap up to Cloud Nine. He was in heaven without ever having to look for it.

He even waved to the one girl who never waved back at him in his elation, shouting "Hello Ino!" so raucously he was suddenly sure that someone should have rebuked him in the streets.

But from their smiling faces, no rebuke ever came for him.

And as always, the quiet, shy blonde continued to water the colorful parade of flowers in her garden, eyes never looking up to face him, her mouth never forming even the beginnings of a greeting as she meticulously cared for those plants, caressing the oily leaves as though she was cradling a child.

Nothing ever seemed to change, he thought to himself.

And wasn't it such a wondrous thing?

…

As he was wandering down the fruit section, his eyes caught a hint of grey and lilac.

Pasty, pale, dull pastel colors, shining from the other side of the store in the eyes of a young girl.

Thin and hopelessly pale, she would have been mistaken for some sort of wraith, an apparition, a wandering, lost little ghost, had it not been for the pale man standing beside her, a sibling or relative, according to the similar pale eyes and facial features.

The man's hands clutched the girl's arms gently as he seemed to push her from one aisle of the store to the next, his face a caring show of sympathy and tenderness as he spoke to her.

All Naruto could hear, however, was a wash of noise, static, a rumbling that resounded, amplifying with greater and greater volume all over his body.

The more he looked into those peculiar eyes, the louder the sound resonated, the more he began to distinguish voices in the audio haze.

**I won't let you…..**

_She said that._

_Somehow, somewhere, she said that._

_But…I've never seen her before…_

He didn't even know why he follows them silently, his feet treading with the nonexistent footfall of a jungle cat. From behind, the girl's ebony hair, so black it almost seemed to become blue, washed over her shoulders in deep contrast to her quartz skin. He noticed, as he followed them that she wore a light blue hospital gown underneath a deep brown knit sweater.

"Neji, I think there's someone following me…"

He was so awestruck at the voice, so similar to the rambling in his mind, right down to the simple tone of the words, that he didn't at first recognize the content until the fearful grey and lilac eyes washed over him.

Another pair of pale grey eyes stared murderously at him.

"What the hell are you doing?" The long-haired pale man stepped towards Naruto, eyes glowing with the anticipation of an answer he could take offense at.

_Her name is Hinata._

Somehow, he knows that this is her name, that she was the one to say that to him, and that, he has known her despite himself, which causes him to panic. How can I know and not know a girl I see in a grocery store? Maddening…

"Sorry, I was just…"

"Just screwing around! Now look, brat. I don't care if you lead the village or whatnot, it's no excuse to stalk my cousin!" The livid grey eyes blaze with a new sort of fury as the girl grips unto the arm of her protector, shaking in fear of a confrontation. "She's an amnesiac, for God's sake! What are you, some sort of pansy-ass freak who can't' get regular girls?"

An amnesiac….Her eyes look back at him fearfully, and he can suddenly see the vacancy in them. There is no memory contained in those haunting orbs. There is nothing but the present reflected in those eyes.

He feels the shove long before he can do anything about it, feels his back strike the floor with the force of protective rage, the wind knocking out of his lungs, his teeth clattering, barely having the time to curl up into a ball before the kicks begin to rain down.

"Neji!" The girl, Hinata, again, standing over him with a red-faced Neji, pulling him back with those pale, malnourished arms that had looked so feeble.

"Please…" She turned to look at Naruto, anxiety still written in the lines of her thin face as she clutched Neji's arm tighter, creating strained marks across the black fabric of his shirt.

"There's no need for violence."

_She's afraid of me._

For some reason, the thought brought up an emotion of disappointment, cold and damp, that suddenly overtook him. Perplexed, he shookhis head on the white tiles of the grocery floor to clear it.

How did he know her?

As he heard the sound of their feet striding away, he picked himself up, hand smoothing over the back of his head. No blood, but it hurt, stinging, skin nearly broken at the back of his neck. Blood was collected, waiting to flow, only stopped by a bare thread of skin, now rendered purple and already bruising.

The clock as he walked out of the store read 10:00 AM.

Sighing, he walked out of the store a different way, on the road back home to Sakura.

He gave a wave to Ino, but as always, she never looked up from her plants, watering can raised, green and dented, in an eternal water shower.

…..

**MAN FOUND DEAD IN FREAK CAR ACCIDENT**

THE BODY OF HYUGA NEJI WAS FOUND LAST NIGHT AT THE SITE OF WHAT APPEARS TO HAVE BEEN A COLLISION ON THE HIGHWAY WITH A CAR BELONGING TO AN UNIDENTIFIED INDIVIDUAL, ALSO ABANDONED AT THE SCENE, POSSIBLY DUE TO THE INSTIGATOR OF THE CRASH'S FEAR OF DISCOVERY. MR. HYUGA WAS AN UPSTANDING MEMBER OF THE KNONHA COMMUNITY AND LEAVES BEHIND ONE COUSIN, HYUGA HINATA.

"You know," Naruto grunted through a mouthful of ramen at the breakfast table, "That's the guy who mouthed off to me in the grocery store. He thought I was stalking his amnesiac cousin."

"How horrible." Sakura said, her body shaking with disgust as she read the article further, delving deeper into body descriptions. "It's so bad that this had to happen to someone. I can't imagine how his cousin must feel."

"She's an amnesiac, I told you before."

"Oh, that's right, silly me. But, wait, didn't he insult you?"

"Yeah."

"Oh, you never said anything!" Her arms wound around him tightly, reassuring. "He's such a jerk to have done that to my Naruto-kun, even if he's dead!"

"It's okay..."Naruto awkwardly disengaged from her arms to pick up the newspaper once more, scrutinizing the smiling picture of Hyuga Neji . "It's just…why did he die, the day after he insulted me…."

"Coincidence, darling." Sakura purred softly into his ear. "Forget about it, it's too sad." She stroked his hair fondly, fingers working through blond locks with precision, soothing his suspicions.

"It's alright." She whispered as he slowly begin to drift back into slumber, his mouth wide open, arms collapsing at his sides in the orange kitchen table, head thrown back to her fingers.

"Live for your happiness, Naruto-kun." A whisper into the ear of a sleeping innocent.


	2. Chapter 2: Worthless Drunk

It is night, and a black curtain almost seems to have fallen over Konoha, a curtain of rain and overarching clouds that threaten Naruto to walk back faster. Dripping off the fluorescent orange of his tiger-lily-colored umbrella, the tear-shaped droplets barely miss his face, only dampening his coat sleeves.

_You cannot face me. I am Nature, I am that which no man has harnessed, I am that which cannot be restrained, that will break out of every container known to your puny species._

_I am your nightmare, your dreams and I am your reality. _

_Most of all, I am all you do not know, and that is why you cower._

As he steps into puddles, his shoes growing slowly wetter and wetter, he whistles to himself as the lonely street stretches out, dark and lit only by the occasional street-lamp. It is a simple tune, continuous and basic, over and over and over again the same melody. Familiarity is comforting.

Perhaps it is fate that causes him to stare down at the next puddle he is about to step into, perhaps it is just an occurrence. But as soon as he does see, he halts, fear-stricken, stopped by the visage in murky water.

Don't make any sudden moves, he tells himself, and, tilting his umbrella slightly downward, prepares to use it as a weapon.

"Don't be afraid." The figure in the puddle, cloaked in darkness behind his own reflection chuckles. "I swear, you're such a jumpy little guy, aren't you?"

Begrudgingly, Naruto turns his head.

An overlarge hat and scarf cover the features of the man, while giant leather boots, drenched with rainwater, plod on the concrete of the road. His body wrapped in a long trench coat, his hands encased by white gloves holding onto an umbrella that blends into the night, his is the appearance of an enigma, the stranger, the unknown.

"Who are you?"

The crinkles in the scarf seem to show a proud smile beneath them. What does this man really look like, beneath all that casing and secrecy?

"You can call me Six."

"Is that your real name?"

"What is real?" Another chuckle, and an arm swinging around his shoulders, a comradely gesture from a stranger.

"Buy me a drink."

"What?" Naruto turned to the faceless hat and scarf, ears buzzing.

"Buy me a drink, I said." Six stated, releasing his hold on Naruto's shoulders nonchalantly. "You may find it helps you someday."

…

So there they sat, the two men, chuckling away raucously after the pleasures of about six drinks. Naruto's cheeks had long turned red as beetroots, and Six's laughter was still ringing after having heard twenty different renditions of pop songs, Naruto-style. In short, Naruto was actually enjoying himself, even if he was playing drinking games with some guy he'd just met.

"So, I hear you're with some girl named Sakura, eh?" Six chortled, feet stomping as he downed the next pint vigorously, his scarf staining with the froth of the beer.

"Yeah, she's the best, especially in bed, not to mention she can cook and clean and still be adorable!" Naruto yelled over the sound of his own drunken mind.

"She probably completely whips you all the time, am I right?" Six clapped his arm on Naruto's shoulders, breathing alcohol into his nostrils through the opening in the scarf that showcased his mouth of uneven teeth.

"Nawww. Sakura's gentle and caring and not the least bit feisty. A complete housewife in the making. Maybe I should pop the question soon, get 'er a big ring or whatever. Emerald maybe, it'd suit those pretty eyes…"

"Sakura's not feisty?" Six's voice, tinged with a sudden desperate urgency, flooded into Naruto's hazy consciousness.

"Yeah. What, you think I'd let myself be whipped around by some girl?"Naruto snorted through a new mouthful of vodka. "Pfft."

Six abruptly stood up, pushing his chair into the bartable with a new steady hand, almost as if he had become sober in a matter of seconds. Or more likely, that he had never been drunk to begin with.

"Whatsa matter?" Naruto shouted after the retreating figure of Six. "We were having a good time…"

"I found something I have to do." The anger in the voice was unmistakable, cold and furious, causing Naruto to drop his glass onto the table with a hard thump. "See that you get home in one piece, you worthless drunk."

How strange, thought Naruto as Six, feet moving hastily with some unknown purpose, exited the bar.

Ugghhh. The beginning of a headache lifted him, shaking and throbbing, out of the chair and through the door.

**Review please ;). All feedback is accepted.**


	3. Chapter 3: Stay Away

After the waiting, she finally stood in the shadow of Neji's former front steps to the house they had supposedly shared, hands poised awkwardly, turning the silver key in the lock. The subtle clicking behind the door, somehow familiar in a world of confusion comforted her. Sighing, she entered, wiping wet soles on hardwood floor.

_Home sweet home…I guess. _

Silently, she grabbed in the general area of a light-switch, feeling for it anxiously as she tore off the sodden pieces of leather that had been her shoes, tossing them into a corner without a single glance at their fall.

_Doesn't matter, I'll clear it up tomorrow._

As the electricity flickers slowly to life, she sees the photos.

If ever she had any doubt about the relation between herself and Neji, it is erased. Those photos hanging everywhere from the walls, pictures of a young grey-eyed boy, solemn and smiling in alternate frames, holding onto a young girl. She smiles brightly, her eyes grey and lilac shimmering in the sunlight accompanying the more cheerful photographs.

Hinata remembers seeing that girl's chubby-cheeked face when she first awoke. Neji had been standing over her, his eyes concerned as he pushed a mirror towards her, the glass shimmering as if a piece of a broken star.

The strange girl in the mirror had been a matter of fixation for Hinata. She was constantly the same malnourished, spectral being, with those eyes penetrating into Hinata's field of vision, seeming to look within her for something. She was beautiful but starving, wasting into nothing, a ghost-girl, flitting around in the mirror.

Have you anything? The girl seemed to be saying. Anything that can help me find my way? She always seemed so fragile, eyes darting around to look for a way out of the glass.

_I have nothing, I'm sorry. I don't know who you are, or who I am. I can't help you._

_How can I help you when I can't help myself?_

Eventually, she finally asked who the strange girl in the mirror was, and the boy with the haunting grey eyes told her, stoically:

"It's you."

She spent the next days dreaming of the girl's face melding onto a shadow body, creating an identity for nothingness, giving a name to unknown.

She always woke up before the formation of her identity was done.

* * *

Sighing with the regret of a dreamer waken, she walks up the steps…..

And sees a shadow cross her path, large and looming, down the barely lit hallway.

She immediately responds to fear, hyperventilating loudly, trying to calm herself with Neji's words. It's okay, Hinata, it's gonna be ok, just breathe and calm down.

But that wasn't going to help. The shadow had been large, a man's shadow. A man who was definitely built bigger and stronger than her….

Neji had to have something, she thought fearfully as she attempted to silently step down the stairs. A bat, a knife…but those would require contact, and she didn't want that.

_Hide_.

Jogging through the lower floor past the smiling photographs, now no longer tranquil and peaceful, but a reminder of her mortality, she noticed a cupboard in the storage room, large and empty, with a few cobwebs dangling, faded from age.

She shoves herself into it, slamming the door behind herself so hard that she nearly feels the wooden tomb nearly topple around her to fall on its back. Only her forward motion, awkward and panic-driven, heaving the cupboard from the inside does the trick.

Footsteps. She can't hear them as loud as they are, surely, through the thickness of the wood, but she can hear echoes of them. Thumps, drawing closer and then distancing her from him.

She looks down at trembling hands, feels her heartbeat quicken. Wait. Wait until you can't hear anything, then go outside again, but be careful..

There is a small sound of a dropped item, and then….silence.

It is a charged, suspicious silence, and she tentatively opens the door of the cupboard, praying not to see the eyes and shimmering axe of the man from some horror film she's seen the trailer for.

An inferno of bright flames rises up and licks her fingers instead. Screaming with pain and shock, she shuts the door, before realizing that she's created a tomb, that she will burn in a coffin of fire, that this is the end.

Reaching her hands forward, she struggles, pushing furiously at the door, but it's stuck, light from flame already beginning to show through, eating away at the wood.

Screaming, she hits the walls of her chamber, hard, hard, harder until her fingers bleed. I must get out, I must get out, I will get out…..

And then nothing.

* * *

Suddenly, a gentler light, white behind her eyelids. It's pretty, but she doesn't think she can open her eyes….how strange….

Air, harsh and agonizing, forced down her throat in gasps, in gulps, in giant fumes. Painful, painful life, her windpipes dry as sandpaper receiving the oxygen.

Suddenly, she can open her eyes and does so, staring up into a faceless man.

Well, she admonishes, perhaps he has a face, underneath that scarf and hat. She wondered how he could breathe.

"Look's like Sleeping Beauty's finally awake." The strange man's voice has a smile in it as he bends over her.

"Did…did you…" She hacks suddenly, a coughing fit coming on, furious and violent as she clutches her sides.

"Don't speak so much, the paramedics are on their way…" The man turned his covered face to the house, and in a dark tone muttered "Such a shame.."

Before she is carted away on the stretcher, lifted into the air and onto an ambulance by two orderlies, she sees the house.

Not ruined, but charred, badly so, meat cooked for too long. Window glass melted away, and the photographs probably bits of charred ash on the floor.

She wants to care, wants to care for the house, to feel righteous fury at its demise. Wants to…but won't. Can't.

It is a house of smoke and nightmares now, no matter what it was in her past life, for the Hinata who died, as she likes to think of her.

But as she looks more closely, the charred parts of the front wall begin to shift, a pattern emerging. A message.

**STAY AWAY FROM UZUMAKI NARUTO OR I WILL FIND YOU AGAIN. -NINE**


	4. Chapter 4: The Strangers' Deal

**Ooohhhh Drama in that last chappie! Here's some more if you like that stuff, and if you don't...what...are...you? Some sorta monster? Why are you on ...are you here for fluff? That's not a bad thing I like fluff just as much as the next one...**

**Naruto (whack): CONTINUE MY STORY DATTEBAYO!**

**Me: AUGGHHH SORRY MASTER! (oh god that sounds perverse)**

As Six walked down the narrow streets of Konoha, he was met with many a surprised, shocked glance. Not unusual, considering his choice of adornment, which, while hot (he did sweat very much underneath all this) made his identity something to guess. He did like puzzling people himself, though he admitted that as an individual he hated puzzles and mystery games. It was much better to be straightforward, simple and to know that the right cards were on the table.

Suddenly, he saw a figure, dressed identical to himself, hat, scarf and all, dart into an alleyway.

Reflexes honed to a fine point, he silently jogged, almost as if merely out for a bit of exercise, into the alley as well.

The figure slumped against the wall of a nearby restaurant, feet collapsing in the dumpster, cushioned by black trash bags. As soon as it turned its head, it saw Six and began to charge forward…

"Calm down." Six raised his arms up into the air, smiling a little beneath his masking. "Unarmed….and I don't plan on using any jutsu."

Snarling, the figure retreats just a little, arms still at the ready, tense muscles bristling.

"So…"Six turned and kicked a discarded soda can, "I suppose you like arson? That you attempted to kill Hinata-chan?"

The figure snarled, clearly unpleased at Six's continuation of the conversation.

"Relax, old friend. I'm on your side." Six stepped forward. "Perhaps we haven't always gotten along…"

A snort from his identical figure, cloaked and faceless.

"But this world isn't what either of us want." Six stretched his hand out to the figure, opening himself up. "You want to rejoin the other part of you, I see...you're not as powerful without all of you here…. "

The figure growled again, furious but in agreement.

"And I want the other world back."Six finished, hand still outstretched. "We can help each other." His eyes narrowed in a cruel, deal-making smile. "Shake on it with me…."

Grudgingly, another gloved hand meets his midway

Two hands shaking and the deal is sealed, bond and done.

**And no...Six and Nine are not O.C.s, they are canon characters. Just clearing that up now before I get asked. **


End file.

Naruto, Romance, Suspense